


Midwinter

by CynaraM



Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Blanket Fic, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9113191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynaraM/pseuds/CynaraM
Summary: Leonie and Cabal are benighted and cold. It's a classic for a reason.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not precisely in my main series, and not precisely out of it, either. Enjoy, strangers and friends.

It was the frostiest night the village had seen in ten winters. Parents dressed their children in wool and tucked them into bed early, and the adults stayed awake to tend the fire through the night. The few who left their houses, the adulterous or the hardy or those who were just visiting the well, saw a halo around the moon, crisp and blue. Lunar halos are rare. They admit unusual influences - let us not guess from where - and make the unlikely possible. 

In a disused house a little way out from the village, two travellers took shelter. 

“I’m so cold.” 

It was unseasonable, to say the least. They had been forced to risk a fire and hope the night and the trees would hide the smoke. It was like the dead chill of interstellar space was lensing down through the moon’s halo, blasting this one small spot.

But it was not as cold as Cabal’s temper. 

“So,’ Leonie said. “No werewolf.”

The silence was stony. 

“Which is good news,’ she continued, “when you think about it.”

Cabal did not speak.

“Will…’ She sucked her lips in to warm them. “Will those experiments you mentioned be totally ruined by the delay?”

“Yes. Completely.” His tone matched the absolute cold of the room. The effect was marred by his swaddling of blankets, but it stung Leonie.

She winced. “I am sorry about that, you know. But you have to admit, it seemed possible that there was a werewolf here. And if there had been….”

“…if there had been,’ he interrupted, “I suppose the folk traditions of a people who have, for hundreds of years, lived in werewolf territory would have been useless next to the efforts of one undergraduate.’ It was withering. “You were playing at being a hero. ”

“No.’ She tried to rally. “It sounded like they needed help. I wasn't planning to go hunting for it, but maybe we could have done something. Anyway, if it was so useless, why did you come?”

“Because you are stubborn, and I didn't want you to get killed.”

There was no sentiment in his voice, just anger, but she darted one surprised look at him. He shut his mouth and his face clouded, as if he had been tricked into a damaging admission. 

They sat by the hearth. Leonie was practically huddling over the dying fire, her mittens extended to the embers. Cabal rose from his straight-backed chair, laid it on the floor, and dismembered it. Cabal enjoyed the brief blush of warmth from the exercise. The chair would burn for another parsimonious hour. Leonie was arranging her blankets on the floor. “It won’t be safe to sleep tonight, _Fräulein_.” Even though she was taking the best spot next to the fire. His patience for chivalry was short; if she thought he was going to stand guard over her and tend the fire….

“I think if we put our coats on top and then wrap the whole mess in the curtain, it will just about keep us warm.’ She was shivering, under her brisk movements. “You know, I think this is colder than Sibersk.” 

“In Sibersk we were outfitted appropriately.” But his attention was elsewhere: “…us?”

She was ready with her answer. “Us, Cabal. No one else here, is there? Bundling is a fine old American custom.”

“I don't understand. Is that a joke?”

“Well, sort of. I don’t mean bundling, exactly, but there’s more than one Yorkshire farmer who has wrapped himself up with a family member or a passing sheep and lived through the night. And before you ask, no, we don't have a sheep to hand. You’ll have to do.”

Cabal’s cogitation was brief and unpleasant. He did not want to ’wrap himself up’ with Leonie. It veered too close to ground that was marked “do not enter,” “no trespassers,” and “intruders will be dissolved.” But the cold was deadly. It was already making him sleepy and the shivers were hard to hide. Leonie, under her businesslike manner, was wretched, and he didn't think her hands were working well inside her mittens. The sullen flame of affection and protectiveness he felt towards Miss Barrow singed him.

He rebelled against it. He should be at home now. He should be writing up notes on his experiments. Instead, the tedious chore of cleaning and sterilizing glassware awaited him and the finicky work of resetting the experiments themselves. All because she had to meddle: because she had to make every passing idiot’s problems hers, and therefore his. How many days had he lost to it? He seethed. 

But it was cold. He bent to practicality; he nodded, with an ill grace. She was already wriggling out of her coat, and she shivered as the air of the room hit her. 

A period of fibre engineering followed as Leonie enmeshed them in every scrap of fabric they had been able to scrounge from the house. The finished product was unwieldy and constrictive. They must have looked like a pair of caterpillars sharing one misshapen cocoon. He spent several minutes composing himself while she waited for him to settle - tugging a fold of blanket flat, ensuring he could reach a gun if they were surprised. 

Leonie waited quietly, but with an increasingly ironical eye at these delays. “In your own time, of course. But oughtn’t you strip down to your shirtsleeves?” 

Defeated, Cabal surrendered his frock coat to the inner layer of insulation, and grimly, its owner lay down at last. It was as cold as Antarctica on the floor, but better-padded than he had hoped, and - “ouch.”

“Sorry. Close quarters. I'm just trying to get my….” She fumbled inside the blankets by her knees, untangling a section of her skirt and letting in draughts of cold air that made him wince and complain. That done, she threw the last wraps into place and - oh - quite matter-of-factly - tucked herself along his body and put her head on his shoulder. Through the insulating undergarments and sensible clothing, he felt the warmth of her breathing out like the updraft from a sun-beaten meadow. 

He could feel his face change. He tried to halt it, to return to the expression he thought of as neutral and which most others called supercilious, but he couldn't seem to do it. He could feel his mouth soften, his eyebrows lift. There would be a disciplinary review later for such rampant insubordination. 

When had he last been aware of his body in relation to another person’s, in this quietest and least fraught way? It had been a long time. He had not allowed anyone to embrace him, after the funeral. This was not an embrace, he reminded himself. This was a necessity. But as far as he could remember, he thought, it did feel something like this. The feeling made him check for his gun. It was still there.

Leonie was still shivering and making little hissing noises with the cold, while he fought the shock and pleasure.

Eventually, she subsided into silence, and they lay there. The silence extended again. 

He managed, “I dislike having my work delayed.”

“I know. I really am sorry.’ She hesitated, and he realised, with some unease, that he could feel it in the tension of her muscles. “Is there anything I could do to help? To get you on schedule. Maybe I was at fault. Playing hero.”

He was caught off-guard. “I don't know. Perhaps.’ He struggled for words. “Thank you.”

She relaxed a little. 

“Are you still cold, Cabal?” Her voice was quiet, almost in his ear. “Are the blankets all right on your side? I could rearrange….”

“No.” 

And perhaps regretting the terseness of his reply, he asked, “are you comfortable?” Leonie’s head was a warm weight on his shoulder. There was something satisfying about the sleepy laxness of her body.

She sighed. “Yes, thanks.’ There was a pause, during which they felt the quiet tide of each other’s breath. “I’m glad you’re not alone out here. You’d have lost a toe.” She pulled the wrappings tighter around them. An odd idea occurred; was it possible that Leonie was protective of him, too? As if satisfied with her adjustments, she sighed and relaxed again. In soft but growing warmth, they slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything I write should be tagged ’Johannes has no idea how badly he needs a hug.’ I considered offering this up as a Yuletide treat, but I realised I really just wanted to send it out as a sort of fandom treat - for all of us who are slightly wrong in the head about a put-upon necromancer and his friends. A happy and peaceful 2017 to us all.


End file.
